Clusters of collaborative, creative, and vital research

San Diego State University is investing strategically in seven targeted Areas of Excellence. These investments build on the strengths of our brilliant faculty and campus partners
in new and exciting ways that catalyze innovation and discovery. They encourage collaborations,
and foster the development and growth of scholarship by creating common themes that
are explored from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

HDMA addresses the opportunities that spring from the convergence of new developments
in spatial science, mobile technology, big data, and social behavior research. There
is the growing recognition of the importance of spatial and temporal dynamic relationships
in explaining processes relevant to human behaviors, public health, and social activities,
which has become known as the "spatial turn."

A maturing of mobile technology and smart phone devices enables social scientists
to collect data on human activities and behavior digitally and to transform their
research from qualitative analysis to computational modeling, simulation, and predictions
with the focus on dynamic spatial and temporal relationships.

The availability and quality of fresh water are critical for a sustainable society.
The current water-based challenges facing the global community, including our region
of San Diego County, Northern Baja California, and the Imperial Valley, are projected
to intensify and also arguably represent near-future scenarios for many other domestic
and international regions.

Future water security in many areas of the world, including southern California, will
require both increased supply through wastewater reuse and desalination, and demand
management through integrated resource management strategies. Nonpoint-source pollution
will continue to harm downstream ecosystems and shallow subsurface aquifers. Alternative
water supply strategies, including wastewater reuse, can also have ecological benefits
by reducing discharges into the environment. Thus, Blue Gold – the availability of
fresh water and the health of watersheds are inextricably linked and increasingly
tied to issues of energy and technology as human population, societal demand, and
climate change intensify.

Our vision is that SDSU will become a global leader in developing advanced understanding
of and solutions for water resources issues in water-scarce areas, using the San Diego-Border
region as a model that can be applied in other regions experiencing similar water
scarcity, including areas of active research by the 5 core faculty (India, Brazil,
Mexico, southern Africa). Learn more about Blue Gold.

C2NS is aligned with the National Institutes of Health BRAIN initiative and advances SDSU’s
contributions to the understanding and treatment of brain-based disorders such as
autism, aphasia, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and Alzheimer’s disease.

With research strengths in human behavioral neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology,
plus expertise in neuroimaging, SDSU is well-placed to contribute to this national
priority. Faculty specializing in clinical and cognitive neuroscience will collaborate
to increase understanding of brain-based disorders. Working with a range of ages and
afflictions, they will also look for genetic factors that may influence an individual’s
susceptibility to injury or damage and response to treatment.

C2S2 is on course to become a global resource for climate change information as well as
a regional hub for education and policy development. Members of SDSU’s new Center
for Climate and Sustainability Studies were among the first to detect global warming,
associate it with human activity and determine the effects of climate change on Earth’s
ecosystems.

Now researchers want to expand this cross-disciplinary work to include solutions to
address sustainability. They will investigate how global climate change can affect
ecosystems to feedback and amplify global warming, and how temperature variations—even
as slight as 1 degree—can accelerate the spread of infectious diseases. They will
bring the impacts of climate change close to home by studying its effects on San Diego’s
ecosystems, agriculture, water availability and general economic health.

The Smart Health Institute develops research programs with potential applications
to a wide range of fields including health, medical innovation and devices, disease
diagnostics, and wireless communication. To accomplish this goal, we will build a
multi-college and trans-disciplinary team of researchers.

This diverse group of trans-disciplinary researchers focuses on developing next generation
health sensor technologies ranging from portable, wearable and minimally intrusive
sensors that can provide real-time health monitoring and integration into rehabilitation
assessment, intervention and long-term follow-up of patients to compact, label-free
biomedical sensors with sensitivities down to single molecules, or even nanoparticles
that have been a dream of scientists for years. The Smart Health Institute addresses
the core technology for smart health care that is one of the key challenges in the
medical community. Learn more about the Smart Health Institute here.

Digital Humanities describes efforts to study digital technologies and culture, employ
computational practices in research and teaching, and reflect upon the impact of the
digital. The Digital Humanities Initiative at SDSU promotes such critical engagement
by providing a hub for strategic innovation and collaboration across campus. Learn more about Digital Humanities here.

The Viral Information Institute integrates researchers from biology, mathematics, computer science, engineering and
public health to study viruses and manipulate their interaction with Earth’s ecosystems
for the benefit of human and environmental health. Viruses are the most abundant biological
entities on Earth, outnumbering bacteria more than tenfold. Although viruses infect
all known cells and profoundly influence their evolution, the precise function of
viruses is largely unknown.

Combining strengths in genomics, genetics and biochemistry, mathematical modeling,
and computational analysis, members of this area of excellence will continue to probe
biological “space” to find and explore unparalleled interactions between viruses and
other organisms present in various environments. Their research may develop new ways
to detect, manipulate and control viruses that infect bacteria in natural systems,
from the human digestive tract to ocean waters and coral reefs.